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"NOAA has issued a report on a small part of the recent brutal droughts that have hit the United States over the past few years. The report — 'An Interpretation of the Origins of the 2012 Central Great Plains Drought' — is needlessly confusing, scientifically problematic, and already leading to misleading headlines."

"Dr. Kevin Trenberth, former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has sent to reporters a Commentary on the report, which I repost below. He concludes:

'This report has some useful material in it describing aspects of the drought in 2012 in the central US. But it is quite incomplete in many respects, and it asks the wrong questions. Then it does not provide very useful answers to the questions that are asked.'"